No one could have expected that the war would be so terribly cruel and that those who planned and carried out war operations would cross all possible limits, not only of military, but also of human behavior.
Today, 20 years after the beginning of the attack by soldiers from Montenegro as part of the former JNA on Dubrovnik and Konavle, the wartime mayor of Dubrovnik, Petar Poljanić, looks at that sequence of recent Montenegrin history.
"The brutality of the attacks, their cruelty, arson, looting on the ground, the months-long siege of Dubrovnik, the survival of civilians without water, electricity, telecommunication connections... it is unimaginable. And that was what somehow surprised all of us in the Dubrovnik region and the rest of the country. But it was clear that they would try to conquer a good part of Croatia, including Dubrovnik, especially in the summer of '91," says Poljanić, who was also the first post-war consul of the Republic of Croatia in Montenegro.
Apparently they destroyed in battle
Today, as he claims, in a physical sense, Dubrovnik has practically healed the wounds: "However, wounds remain in the souls of people and they will remain for a long time."
The wounds were opened after the attack by members of the JNA and the Territorial Defense of Montenegro, supported by special forces of the Montenegrin MUP, on October 1, 1991. In the campaign that tarnished the image of Montenegro, 7.500 to 20 soldiers participated.
The aggression, which Montenegro is ashamed of today, cost the lives of 166 Montenegrin citizens, 92 Croatian civilians and more than 430 veterans.
The aggression, which Montenegro is ashamed of today, cost the lives of 166 Montenegrin citizens, 92 Croatian civilians and more than 430 defenders (soldiers, sailors and policemen).
During the siege, which lasted until May 1992, thousands of shells fell on it. Dubrovnik residents were kept without water, electricity and telephone lines for months, while, on the other hand, houses and properties in the surroundings of the city and Konavle were looted.
Former Montenegrin Foreign Minister Nikola Samardžić, testifying before the Hague Court, said that there were also honest soldiers, violently mobilized, who were ashamed of everything that happened: "They told me that JNA soldiers forcibly entered those houses, looted everything that could be looted, and then with bazookas, they set fire to and demolished those houses in order to hide and destroy the traces of the robbery. Apparently, the houses were demolished in the battle".
Slob's pioneers claimed to protect Montenegro
The trip to Dubrovnik was preceded by months of media and political preparation. RTCG and "Pobjeda" reported on alleged armed provocations around Prevlaka and the intention to attack Montenegro. The figure of "thirty thousand Tuđman's Ustasha" was discussed.
"It was possible to protect him with force, because force attacked peace and evil began," explained the creator of the slogan "war for peace".
Marović, then a member of the state presidency and general secretary of the ruling party, said that it was not possible to ensure peace otherwise. "It was possible to protect him with force, because force attacked peace and evil began," explained the creator of the slogan "war for peace".
Noting that in the event of Croatian secession, the internal borders of Yugoslavia must be corrected, Đukanović emphasized that the time had come to draw the demarcation lines towards the Croats once and for all and promised the citizens of Montenegro that these new borders would be more logical and fair than those that were drawn by "learned Bolshevik cartographers".
Recognition of Veljko Kadijević
This troika implemented the plan to turn the Dubrovnik region into the "Republic of Dubrovnik" which was supposed to join "Greater Serbia". Army General and Federal Minister of Defense of the former SFRY Veljko Kadijević testified about this.
He, in the book "My vision of collapse - an army without a state" (Politika, 1993), admitted that it was about the creation of a Greater Serbia, namely the occupation of a good part of Croatian territory, which is why the political leaders in Belgrade and Podgorica entrusted the military leadership to from the Dubrovnik region, they created the "Republic of Dubrovnik" with weapons.
For prof. Ilija Vujošević, the first president of the anti-war Social Democratic Party, in the 90s, Montenegro was "dilettantically but very arrogantly governed by the Great Serbian puppet government".
"Even if they were allowed, they could not have a more enviable political literacy and vision than that Montenegro and Serbia "always together and brotherly" helped each other, or that Montenegro is only a folklore peculiarity, but in everything else an organic part of Serbia . The borders of the new state had to be certified by JNA tank tracks. It was sung in Herzegovina: The Zeta flows through Montenegro, and soon the Neretva will too," Vujošević told "Vijesti".
In recent years, Đukanović and Marović have repeatedly justified their incendiary rhetoric from the beginning of the 90s with alleged lack of information.
Why is there no investigation?
Action for Human Rights reminded that to date no criminal proceedings have been initiated in Montenegro against anyone for war crimes during the siege of Dubrovnik.
"At the end of 2009, in response to Action for Human Rights, the State Prosecutor's Office announced that they were not conducting any proceedings because no one had filed criminal charges related to the events on the Dubrovnik battlefield. In other words, the prosecution considers that all the above information, which is publicly available to them, is insufficient to open an investigation for any form of violation of international humanitarian law. All this despite the fact that Montenegrin state officials publicly accepted responsibility for the damage from organized robbery in which Montenegrin citizens participated. Robbery during an armed conflict is also an act of committing a war crime," said Tea Gorjanc Prelevic.
That's what Milo and Sveto said
Milo Đukanović: "The law should be applied to deserters, but not any newly composed one, according to which people are forced out of work." (Victory, September 18, 1991)
"You can't wave branches of peace while the Serbian people in Croatia are being slaughtered, massacred, raped, while their houses are being burned, their properties are being destroyed, just because they are Serbs. War is not won by desertion but by mobilization". (Victory, October 22, 1991)
Svetozar Marović: "The causes of the Yugoslav crisis are in the continuity of aggressive imperialist Catholicism, which experienced and continues to experience Yugoslavia as one of the secondary and incidental episodes for the realization of larger areas of rule, Catholic interest - Vatican sovereignty and the dominance of that interest bloc". (Victory, August 5, 1991)
"Croatian history was not so significant for European nations. Therefore, it had to be additionally produced in the minds of its militant nationalists. Being trapped by non-existent facts and big illusions is the foundation of Croatian state law. Calling or agreeing to foreign domination in Croatian history was and is called the 'history' of their 'independent statehood'". (Victory, August 12)
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